This is the hike that never ends
It just goes round and round my friends
Some people started hiking it not knowing what it was
And we continue hiking it forever just because
I hiked up a mountain. The size and incline are insignificant because I actually made it to the top and nothing can take that pride away from me. When we were researching cool things to do near Lake George, we found Shelving Rock Falls. The hike to the summit is purported to be a one hour hike and roughly 1.7 miles upward. Seeing how we can easily hike a 5k through the woods, I thought this sounded very manageable. I forgot that my lungs do not cooperate when I go uphill.
When we entered the forest, I was a little skeptical. For some reason, it was a bit muggy and extremely buggy. Like bugs kept flying in my eyes, nose and mouth. Yuck! The kids enjoyed finding some creatures in the forest early on (there was a creek with a frog near the bottom).
Riley found me a walking stick, which she quickly dubbed, “Slicer” because it had little bits hanging off the bottom that looked like roots to me. I told her that the name Slicer fit because I could use it to slice anyone who was too “smart” with me. John was very lucky that I became too tired to lift slicer off the ground by the time I was tempted to use her. She apparently, is Smiley’s sister. Our Smiley stick family is growing.
There is a wide path cleared, but the terrain is rough. There are many roots and some areas are pretty steep; I could only really make it up these areas on the path with the help of my trusty stick. The girls occasionally took extremely steep “short-cuts,” but they would often fall on their behinds which I wasn’t really up for. My one attempt at a short cut involved me hanging on to a sapling for dear life, hoisting myself up to the next part of the real path, panting and wheezing away. I tried to take some short breaks, but there really weren’t many available logs to rest on and it didn’t seem prudent to stop more than the length of time to take a sip or two of water. Despite feeling well prepared with the amount of water that we brought, we were leaking it back out ever pore of our bodies, so we ran out soon after reaching the summit.
When we were a third of the way up, John started telling me that he was *sure* that we were almost at the top. Half an hour later, we ran into a couple and John asked them how far it was to the top. The husband said, “You’re not that far. We just left.” The wife smiled, glanced at her watch, and said, “We left about 30 minutes ago, but the views are worth it!” Yeah, that sums it up. John was the husband there, who had a suspended view of time and accelerated view of distance passed.
We traversed a section of the mountain that was medium sized stones for yards and yards at a time. Even if you still had the steam to hike quickly, you had to chose your step carefully to keep your balance. When we were an hour and a half into our hike, Riley started to complain that she was tired and wanted to turn around. I told her that she could do it if mommy could. We repeated her mantra, “I’m strong enough, I’m brave enough, I’m smart enough, I’m a superhero, I can do anything and I love myself.” OK, maybe I only half-chanted it once in between panting, but you get the point. She kept going. Finally, we could see that the trees looked thinner and the air looked brighter because we were nearing the top.
We made it to the top, I took a picture or two, and was ready to sit on a big rock, when John said, “This doesn’t look right. Give me a minute,” and he disappeared with the dog down a trail. He re-appeared in a few minutes and we followed him down a narrow path to The Spot.
The views here really were worth it all. This is what two hours worth of hiking up a mountain looks like. Riley found berries, probably wild blueberries, but a quick google search also let us know several poisonous berries look somewhat similar, so we decided to forego tasting them, much to her dismay. She still persisted on picking berries on the edge of the mountain, preferring this to basking in the view. After a nice snack and plenty of time to just “be” at this pinnacle of beauty, we decided to start our descent.
Even with every muscle in my body whining in protest from the simplest movement, the descent was really easy. It only took us 30 minutes total to make it to the bottom. As we kept hiking down, John and I kept exchanging looks. It was really amazing to realize that we had hiked up these steep paths; I definitely needed Slicer to keep me from slipping and face planting in the rocks numerous times.
We decided to return another day to check out the falls. I told John I want a t-shirt that says, “I climbed a mountain.”
Our total hiking time: 2.5 hours
Distance: 3.4 miles
Lasting Impressions: Exhaustion, pride, and gorgeous views
I know there are a lot of people out there that do this type of thing on the regular, but this was totally out of my comfort zone and an amazing stretch and testament of willpower.
Spiders and snakes and falls, oh my!
We chose a beautiful day to hike to the Falls. It’s really a nice, easy hike out to the Falls with varying terrain that stays pretty level until the final descent to enter the Falls area. The stream that feeds into the Falls stayed to our right providing a beautiful babble and steady store of delights to explore along our way.
We approached the Falls from above and initially couldn’t see how to make our way to the bottom. We scaled down some moderately steep slopes, hanging on to roots, trees and rocks to leverage ourselves safely to the bottom. There may have been an easier path, but we were impatient.
Climbing down those last few feet was like climbing into an enchanted forest. The Falls were beautiful, serene and full of energy at the same time, seemingly suspended in magic.
There were a few families enjoying the Falls. One had climbed up to a natural rock platform about 2/3 of the way up the Falls. Another family was sitting on the other side of the pool at the bottom and had a baby floating in an infant float. A dog came to greet Ginny who was very excited to find a friend, but the family didn’t let their dog stay to play. John and I enjoyed relaxing on some rocks while the girls swam in the water and climbed along the Falls.
I’m not sure who noticed it first, but at some point, the girls became very aware that there was a snake sitting on a rock across the water pool. John claimed it was probably dead and if it wasn’t, he was pretty sure it was a land snake since it was sunning on the rock. The girls would not approach the snake or re-enter the water, so John climbed across the rocks. He threw small rocks near the snake and it didn’t move. Feeling confident, he leaned onto the rock that the snake was perched on, again making a large motion.
Suddenly, the snake slithered quickly into the water. It was a water snake! After this, no one wanted to stick around to see if the snake had friends or find out where he had gone. I’m no longer petrified of the idea of snakes, but I still have a healthy sense to move away from them. Without screaming, we slowly extracted ourselves from the Falls and began our climb back up the slope. Back on the path, Kaeli and Riley ran into a red spider. While cool to admire, we decided to social distance from the spider, too. Soon after, we found a little green caterpillar hitchhiking on Riley’s shoulder. It was definitely a hands on nature experience.
Despite the spiders, snakes, and other creatures, we thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Falls.
Shelving Rock was my favorite destination in the Lake George area and I highly recommend it to anyone traveling through the area.